According to an announcement by Mark Shuttleworth on the Ubuntu announcement list on Friday, the Karmic Koala will not just be searching the clouds for suitable sustenance, but will bring plenty of nourishment with her. This is of course a reference to Eucalyptus, the open source-based project which will enable the use of Amazon EC2 for smaller data bases.

Just as a real Koala bear will sleep to save energy, Ubuntu 9.10 will also reduce it's energy requirements when there's little or no work to be done. Mark has set out to create a totally new design and artwork for the project. The Karmic Koala will, for example, have a new boot-screen with a flimmer free start. Many goals set by Mark and the community are aimed at the use of Ubuntu on netbooks. The distro will bring support for all out-of-the-box netbooks and will boot in 25 seconds. The Ubuntu netbook version will adopt many features from the Moblin project, and lessons learned from current Dell, Toshiba and HP netbook versions will be implemented to increase user friendliness.

Mark has issued an open invitation to all who wish to take part in the development of Karmic Koala to join him at the Ubuntu Developer Summit, where they can get a first look at the Koala in Barcelona, Spain, between May 25 and 29.

The next Ubuntu 9.04 version, codenamed Jaunty Jackalope, is scheduled for the end of April. The next long term support version is expected in April 2010.